May 23 2009, California, USA: {12} Thou shalt not murder. {S} Thou shalt not commit adultery. {S} Thou shalt not steal. {S} Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. {S}
I share the indignation of those who looking towards the vyasasan, expecting from the person seated there some wisdom, enlightenment and knowledge, receiving from the one seated there instead only bigotry, small mindedness and hypocrisy.
Oh yes, Kshamabuddi, sucking down a brewski and stealing his employer’s time, all the while parading himself as if he were something else other than he actually was, something other than what Srila Prabhupada said that he was, a fool and a rascal and one thing else besides, not even a human being, just another greedy little monkey, albeit one with grand designs.
It has not been so long since Istaghosti.org that I have forgotten you, parading yourself and your besotted wit about as if you were an example of someone to be admired and emulated instead of just another example of what not to be. I haven’t forgotten how you went about barking like a dog, challenging Puru in hopes that you could gain pack status by defeating him. I haven’t forgotten Puru’s bewilderment as you continued to ignore all proof positive and conclusive argument, his mistaken consideration that he was speaking to something other than an animal, that he was talking to a man.
But you seem to have forgotten, Kshamabuddi, what stopped your mad ranting for quite some time there, for several weeks, in fact, until you thought that the coast might be again clear providing that you stopped baiting Puru and snapping at his heels. Of how someone who Puru once thought of very highly and who loved him as a brother tired of your taunting and disrespect of him. Some few days before he died I shocked him, we argued one last time and after he presented to me the evidence that was exactly what I wanted, the precise quotes, I agreed with Narayana Maharaja on one thing that he said — that only fools would think that Srila Prabhupada was sectarian despite his presentation.
Were Narayana Maharaja consistent in his comments instead of sometimes actually presenting Srila Prabhupada as simply a servant of Vishnu or an ass-like Vaisnava, a sectarian according to Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s categorization in Sri Krsna Samhita, I would have no problem with him, on that account, but this isn’t about Narayana Maharaja, it’s about you, presenting Srila Prabhupada as that which you believe him to be – sectarian, and by so believing, you offer continued proof that nothing has changed in you.
History doesn’t repeat itself. Human behavior does. In order to change human behavior from repeating the same mistakes that have been made, over and over again, you have to change human consciousness.
The true value of any transcendent tradition is to be found in its liberating qualities, in that and in those transcendent traditions that are also Theistic in it’s ability to attain one to the highest value of any transcendent tradition, in its ability to establish one in loving relationship with Godhead.
I am not myself, nor have I ever been a Christian, a Muslim, nor a Jew in this life, but I worship the same father in Heaven as they do… Does He love me any better or any less because I call Him by one Name and you by another, because I follow the tenants of my faith and you the tenants of another? Does He look upon me as being less because I pray to him in a synagogue, or kneeling on a carpet, or in my cabinet? Someone who is a sectarian would say so, and someone who was only appearing sometimes to be a sectarian might also say so. The question in the later case is, why? Why would someone present himself sometimes in ways that fools would take to imply that he was sectarian to them?
The answer is quite simple. You cannot have both open borders and liberal social programs. Srila Prabhupada never said such things as he sometimes did which would lead fools to interpret him as being racist, sexist, a sectarian, etc., to dis-empower the Krsna Consciousness movement, but teaching in accordance with time, place and capacity and knowing full well your capacity and the capacity of some others, said such things as to remove your authorization. And what is that authorization? Srila Prabhupada. Each and every time any of you present Srila Prabhupada as a racist, as a bigot, as a sexist, etc., you reduce him in the eyes of those you mean to charm to a position not of attraction, but of repulsion, repulsion from you. Revulsion, contempt and enmity are the feelings that you arouse by such presentation, not love, but hatred, not the desire to join or support Krsna consciousness, but to stamp it out.
That is why Srila Prabhupada spoke sometimes in that way, to discredit you and all of you who do the things you do in Krsna’s name. Rather than see that continue, Srila Prabhupada would accept all derision that can be attached to his name. There is only one other explanation, and my choice is founded upon spiritual realization.
Srila Prabhupada did indeed say that Jesus instructed Christians not to kill and by this instruction that Jesus also was including animals in that restriction against killing, and all the Jewish and Christian and Muslim world do not even nod their head in contradiction despite what they have read, for those of them who were there before him understood in their hearts that a man of God stood before them and they respected him. You are another matter
But why did you, the Western disciples of Srila Prabhupada, the ones who studied Torah, the ones who went to seminary, why didn’t you say anything? Was it out of respect or out of fear, or out of some other motivation? Why did you never point out to him that in the Bible Jesus is only repeating his Father’s sixth Commandment and that elsewhere, within a few pages flipped either way, that there is permission given directly by God to kill and eat animals, including cattle?
I wonder what would have happened if you had, whether he would have said, “Oh, I thought….”, or whether he would have looked you in the eye and said matter of fact, “I am not repeating hearsay.”
Somewhere right now Jesus, Srila Prabhupada and Mohammed are probably all together in kirtana, chanting Gods Names. Now there’s love…
All glories to Srila Prabhupada
Ys, George A. Smith
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